


‘Five Ways’ this will do you in

by Ketchrey



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: C.T. is bumped up to Alpha squad ahead of Wash, Gen, Ohio digs her giant robots, This is why C.T. is the best friend, Wash has separation anxiety...poor thing, aka; B-team relationships are tough to break, have some cuteness and angst my dears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-16 09:52:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14809041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ketchrey/pseuds/Ketchrey
Summary: Having Washington for a dorm-mate had been like adopting a whinier,broodier, stray cat.And a cat wouldn’t require this much attention...





	‘Five Ways’ this will do you in

“Why do you think they quit making movies about baby animals?”

C.T. has to duck into her drink to avoid choking. To the right she reads both Ohio and Idaho growing going ram-rod stiff, all the lightness of their movie night consensus making an exit. 

“Pardon?” Ohio asks, going remarkably quiet.

"Baby animals." Iowa says it again, as though he’s clearing something up. "That was my childhood. Baby deer, baby elephants, baby puppies..."

“Did you just...” Idaho trails off, and with the same enthusiasm as Ohio, responds. “Mike, I think you mean baby dogs.”

"...Nope, I mean baby puppies. It’s always those sweet little guys that hit me in feels."

"Mike.” Ohio says with a clip she struggles to level. “The babies _are_ the puppies."

"That’s what I'm saying, the heck do you think I've been sayin?"

Ohio's lip vanishes below her front teeth. Her nostrils flare. " _Dogs_." She says. "When the dogs have babies, they are called _puppies_."

..."Then why would people say baby pup-"

“Tell me who says that!” She rotates, scrutinizing faces at the table. "Connie do you say that? Davy? Ezra? Nope? No, it's just you. You call them baby puppies, and you are a toolbox." C.T. takes a long drink, unable to resist a smile when she makes eye contact with Ohio over the can. "You _are_ hearing all of this?” Ohio sounds desperate. “I haven't completely tripped it–he _is_ in fact a massive tool?"

“Mass—hib.” C.T. nods, mouth full of soda. She swallows. ...”Paul Bunion’s tool."

Iowa squawks unhappily.

"Yes, thank you. These boys are making me stupid." Ohio thunks the cheek of her spoon against Iowa’s tray. "Can I just ask, how does one remain a Disney fanboy beyond the age of eight?"

"I’d imagine the same way one memorizes the transcripts of twenty-eight Transformers movies." Idaho says into his mug.

Ohio snaps a semi-mortified glare across the table. “I do not have them memorized! ...I have the Autobot lines memorized."

" _Geek_." Idaho coughs.

Ohio flicks the oatmeal out of her spoon at him. “Connie? It’s your night to choose and all, but I’ve been having a rough week. I’ll be needing some explosions."

"These film cravings of yours, they're most revealing." Idaho ducks this time and has the good sense to stay below the table as she scoops herself more ammo. "Good God lady, I’m only fucking with you!"

C.T. smirks to the familiarity of bicker, relaxing into it while her fingers play with a pop tab. Next to her, Washington’s eyes are held to his tray. “Hey,” She bumps his leg beneath the table. “What do you feel like seeing? I can probably get York’s copy of Big Hero 6.”

He’s either elected not to speak or doesn’t start fast enough. Iowa rises so suddenly that it jars the table and nearly knocks Ohio’s soda.

"Agent New York watches Disney?" He squeaks.

“He made our entire floor sit through a Toy Story marathon."

The boys very quickly fall into keening, “He’s the coolest”, “That dude can get _sooo_ many chicks”... Ohio shakes her head and slurps loudly.

At some point during, Washington gets up to leave. His food is cold on the table before anyone notices.

.  
.  
.

 

"It's not gonna play well with them, what you're trying to do."

Concentration broken by the rattle of wheels, C.T. looks at him.

The stairwell is empty. Lights out is less than an hour away and everyone else was busy finishing up their evening rituals.

Washington has long since claimed the horse shoe hallway above the boiler room as his roller rink. He had snuck an honest to God skateboard through customs onto the ship. Equal amounts impressed and intrigued, C.T. had settled on keeping her mouth shut.

Simple as he claimed to be, Washington had an uncanny capacity for executing the occasional wonder.

Since he had slunk away from their movie, the evening’s atmosphere had shifted. It left her in the sad place of having to excuse herself and follow him up these musty corridors.

Now slumped against the cool bars of a railing, within the thick humidity of the boiler room, she finds a hole in her duck-speckled pajama pants and tugs it absently. Having Washington for a dorm-mate had been like adopting a whinier, _broodier_ , stray cat.

_And a cat wouldn’t require this much attention_ _.._.

The quarter mark buzzard for the engine vents goes off with a sharp wail, and the stream billows up from the room below. C.T.’s nose wrinkles against the rank smell but she does not budge. Washington has never showed to be bothered by it. He doesn’t react either way to it tonight, using his ankles to snap at the board, playing with trick after trick.

"You think that I'm trying something?" C.T. probes carefully, following the motion of his legs.

His glaze flits, and there’s that same concentrated expression he has for every other thing these days. "Maybe not in the conventional sense, but…" His shoulders slump in a shrug. “I just, hadn't expected it. I wouldn’t have thought you'd still want to hang around.”

"You believed that I would spontaneously quit giving a shit?" 

"Forget it," Washington aborts, wiping sweat from his brow. “That didn’t come out right.”

C.T. shifts, cringing from the cling of her pyjama bottoms in the humidity. She considers him, but before her mouth has parted he’s speaking.

"I feel up to doing the rails."

C.T. runs her eyes down the spiral staircase and its handrail. The floor cuts off to a private entrance on the basement level, into the boiler room. She’d witnessed him make it around a several bends before, but never without receiving a bump or cut on the third platform.

Washington rolls over to the edge, testing the board with a bounce.

"I’m going to be the one who has to haul you back up these stairs.” C.T. glares at his back. “Why not start out on the fourth platform and see how you do from there?"

"Nah," And then he throws back the first look of mirth she's wrestled out of him in months. “Can’t be epic when you’ve got a safety net."

_He'll break his neck,_ she thinks it fondly.

As Washington pushes off the first step she scoots over to the edge to watch.

She listens to him make it down three floors, then clatter onto the fourth. He hobbles back up to the landing on his own, forlorn as hell.

“I always forget how dark it is down there," He mutters, letting the board out of his hands to roll.

C.T. reaches a leg out to trap it, and pulls it under her feet. He follows it over to her, then puts his back to the wall and slides to the floor.

..."I should list them for you sometime."

Washington has shut his eyes but sighs heavily. "Do what for me sometime?"

"List the five ways this thing,” Her foot claps the board. “is gonna be responsible for doing you in."

There's a slow beat before he’s done the translation and has mustered the energy to look offended. “Excuse me?"

"So many, Wash. If I’m not pressed for time I could come up with a bonus round."

Washington’s head clunks the wall just a little harder than before.

"How many times do you have to crack your ribs on these stairs?”

"Twice.” He grimaces. “It was twice.”

“And those were just during basic tumbles. Then you do shit like dropping into elevator shafts while the elevator is moving. Doing the rails on the catwalk. Either you break yourself beyond repair on this thing, or Wisconsin finally catches you doing those jumps off the observation deck and does the job herself."

"That’s..."

“I think that’s five.”

C.T. looks at him, expecting the imminent fleck a smile. She’s watching his mouth for it, and it’s an odd weight that settles over them both when it doesn’t come.

Washington breaks their silent exchange, tending to the bit of torn fabric around his freshly skinned knee. "Just, don't. You don't have to."

"What don’t I have to?"

He can barely keep his chin from touching his chest. ..."The whole, everything's all right. _We’re_ all right. You don't have to pretend for our sake."

“Well excuse me, but I’ve missed you guys." Just like that she’s abandoning caution. What right does he have to be playing the cornered animal in this? "All I did was get bumped up a squad.”

"I know... It’s different. That’s all it is. I don't really know how to explain it any other..."

"You can't even explain to me why you're upset?“

"I'm not..." Wash heaves but, progressively, doesn’t turn away fully. "You don't get it because it’ll never happened to you, but it... You’re gonna stop coming around. That’s what you're meant to do; keep to your own team."

"You are my team." She takes a breath to harness the rising inferno of her anger. “I don’t understand where this is coming from."

"It’s not going to be the same. Maybe you just don’t get that yet..." His gaze tilts to the floor, brow twitching as he grows frustrated. "We’re not partners anymore."

The wind crushes from her lungs, and a punch, good and solid, blocks the breath in her throat. Unable to counter the shock, she nearly misses that Washington is still speaking. 

"...and this doesn't make it any easier." He barely gets that out, utterly blind to the effect his words are having. "I can get over people. But then there’s Iowa and... You shouldn't do that to them-"

"Do what—they’re my friends." It comes out stung.

”Yeah, well... We all have to do things to get ahead sometimes.”

He chances a look and the one she returns him immediately shuts down his next line of rebuttals.

"Friends don’t stop being friends when ranks change.” She says, chestnut eyes scoring his coldly, unrelenting as he flinches. “This isn’t something that I’m dealing with, is it Wash?” His eyes evade hers. “Straighten it out in your head that this has nothing to do with me. ...If you think you’re going to have a problem with me coming around when I can, you don't have to be there when I do."

C.T. pushes onto the balls of her feet so quickly she nearly catches her toe in Washington’s pant leg. She’s gone to step over the skateboard when his socked foot snags her ankle. She kicks out of his hold, ignoring the sound of cloth scrambling.

"—I saw the way they were looking at you." His voice shifts over to something meek. "They look at you with us, and it’s like you’re...violating protocol."

"Their judgement is not yours to deal with." She glares past the obvious torment in his features, sizing him up. "What is this? You want us to stop spending time together because some of the higher ups are frowning?"

Something overshadows his already pup-like features. Above, the flood lights are dimming. The gold tint almost gives his hair a radiant hue, laying shadowed grooves in his creases and through the scar rippling his brow.

"That’s not what I want." He says brokenly.

"You just implied that we couldn't be if—"

"That’s not what I..." His gaze harrows in on her. "What I said was, you'll change. You're going to change your mind about us and when you do I’ll be...” His mouth closes sharply, having ran just a little longer than he had meant to. “If that’s how it’s going to happen, I would rather we do this now."

"Then you’ve already assumed I’m the type who will discard people that I care about for an attractive offer."

Staring where the flesh has been torn from his hands, his exhale stutters. "What I’m _saying_ is, I'll understand if you have to.”

Taking in the subtleties, the way his body had slowly shrunk back into the wall, C.T. turns back to her original approach. Falling out of the crouch she inches back to the wall, where he’s close enough that she can lean and his body is there. Finding his shoulder she buries her face into his neck.

When he looks at her there's color in his cheeks. They’re close. Maybe too close. She blows a raspberry into a flecked patch of his neck to disperse any awkwardness.

"I’ve been bunking with Carolina.” She tries again, fishing for that slight squint of interest. “She’s all right—messy, but all right. Sometimes I steal her shampoo."

He comes back to her with a grin, adjusting his arm to rest atop hers. "Sounds high-risk. Hot as I think it would be if you went a few rounds against Carolina, be careful you don’t burn any bridges.”

She elbows him. “You don’t think I could take her?”

“I know _you_ think you could.”

He doesn’t stiffen, not the way that she does. Something about his tone induces a shiver.

“I think...I’m afraid that you’re going to fight this, and you probably shouldn’t.”

She considers that with her arm wove around his, the musk of sweat still drying into his shirt. “ _I_ think...you try really hard to sound that dramatic."

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading y'all! If you're interested in following my stuff, I'm [ketchrey](http://ketchrey.tumblr.com) on Tumblr. I take free prompts from my followers.
> 
> A Washington/AI centric fic is coming out real soon;) 
> 
> Comments are fuel!


End file.
